A mixture of pieces of writing, some recent, but many older. Some of them are written to be spoken aloud, ranted, recorded or for performance, maybe imagine a voice speaking it, some is just thoughts about things, about teaching performance, some are stories.

Wednesday, 18 January 2017

Moving on, shape shifting

In theatre and dance training the non-holding, going with the flow 'softer' qualities of movement and the listening and responding through the senses, were seen as 'feminine' qualities rather than attributes that belonged exclusively to women. Sense of self in both men & women was seen as a combination of both masculine and feminine energies. Back then, it felt like this sensibility would spread, it was just a slightly more intelligent take on male female roles. That kind of listening and responding certainly enabled Barnaby and I to look more objectively at politicians behaviour and our own patterns and gameswhen we were making our performance piece the Summit. It seemed to speak to people wherever it went -25 countries and survived for over 20 years (1985-2006). In 1989 the Berlin Wall and many barriers came tumbling down and it felt like the world was changing. That attitude of listening and being receptive and adapting to the situation is something that women have traditionally been much better at than men and something they have had to learn to do, to just survive in a world where men carried on unquestioningly just being men. Maybe fed up with this ignorance and intransigence, women have had to be more confrontational but now it's seems more polarised and cruder than ever- women own the feminine and men the masculine. Both are entrenched and rarely do they meet. Maybe its inevitable with the passing of the optimism and idealism of the late 20th century and the current disillusion at how little has changed, but recently I heard someone say ' feminism had won' ???? Won what? In this gender war, often it is the more empathetic men who are the acceptable collateral damage that any war involves. Whilst not denying the re emergence of redundant species like Nigelopods, Vladiraptors and Donosaurs, it is not a conflict between men and women- it is a conflict against old ways of doing things, and the newer, more fluid energy, will erode the old.